Ten months later
"The Voss Global delegation has arrived. Mr. Harrison is escorting them to Conference Room A."
June Knot's voice cuts through the executive floor, and the protein bar I'm holding tumbles from my fingers onto the snack bar counter.
Ten months. Ten months of clawing my way back from the wreckage of that marriage, and Michael Harrison decides to invite my husband's company for a partnership meeting without telling me.
My feet are already moving before my brain catches up, heels clicking against marble as I bolt toward the safety of my corner office.
If I can just make it around the next corridor, I can hide until this nightmare passes and—
"Mrs. Marlowe? I'm so sorry to bother you."
Marlowe. A name I invented out of thin air. When Michael Harrison offered me a lifeline ten months ago, he didn't ask questions—just registered me under something Caspian would never think to search for.
A nervous intern materializes in front of me, clutching a manila folder. Fresh-faced, maybe twenty-two, with the desperate energy of someone trying to impress on their first week.
"Not now."
I try to sidestep him.
"But Mr. Harrison specifically said I needed to bring these financials to Mr. Voss before the meeting starts, and I don't know what he looks like, and everyone keeps telling me to find the strategist because she'll know—"
"Find someone else."
"Please, Mrs. Marlowe, I really need this internship, and if I mess up on my first assignment—"
The conference room door swings open twenty feet away.
Caspian steps out.
Every cell in my body freezes.
He's sharper than I remember. Charcoal suit cut like a weapon, black hair shorter, jaw carved from something colder than ice.
The man who walked away while I poured my heart out at that dinner table. The man who kissed me in his office and promised a second chance, then crawled into bed with another woman.
His eyes find mine across the corridor, and shock fractures his perfect composure.
"Elara." My name falls from his lips like a prayer and a wound. "Oh my God. It's really you."
He crosses the distance between us in four long strides, and I take an instinctive step backward, putting the trembling intern between us.
"I searched everywhere."
His voice cracks, raw in a way I've never heard.
"I hired three different investigation firms. I called every contact we had, flew to six different cities on rumors that turned out to be nothing. You vanished without a trace, without a single word, and I thought—" He stops, swallowing hard. "I thought something terrible had happened to you."
The performance is Oscar-worthy. I'll give him that.
"Save it. I'm not interested in whatever script you've prepared."
"Script?"
Confusion ripples across his features.
"Elara, I've been losing my mind for ten months. I came home and you were just gone. Maria was crying, your clothes were missing, and I had no idea what I'd done wrong."
"You have no idea what you did wrong?" A bitter laugh scrapes my throat. "That's fascinating, Caspian. Truly."
"Tell me."
He steps closer, and I catch his scent, achingly familiar. My stomach turns.
"Whatever you think happened, whatever made you run, just tell me so I can explain."
"Fine."
I cross my arms over my chest.
"Let's start with the masquerade. Did you really think I wouldn't figure it out?"
His brow furrows.
"What masquerade? What are you talking about?"
"Don't."
The word slices through the air.
"Don't stand there and pretend you don't know. I went to that party because I thought my husband was finally fighting for our marriage, and then I tried to thank you, and you looked at me like I'd lost my mind."
"Because I had no idea what you were talking about."
His voice rises with frustration.
"I thought you were confused, maybe stressed from everything we'd been going through—"
"And the phone call?"
I cut him off, the memory slicing through me fresh as the day it happened.
"I called you that night. I had something important to tell you, and Genevieve picked up."
The color drains from his face.
"Elara, that's impossible."
"I know what I heard."
"Then you heard wrong." He steps closer. "That dinner was a disaster, I know, but I never slept with Genevieve."
Liar. The word claws at my throat, desperate to escape.
I want to scream it in his face, watch his careful composure shatter. I want to drag every ugly accusation into the light and make him choke on it.
But I can't.
Because I'm not innocent either.
And if I accuse him now, he'll ask questions. He'll want to know everything. And the truth will bury us both.
So I swallow the accusation whole, letting it burn all the way down.
"It doesn't matter anymore."
"It matters to me." He reaches for my arm, and I flinch backward like his touch is poison. "Elara, please. I don't know how Genevieve could have answered my phone. I wasn't with her that night. I've never been with her."
The raw desperation in his voice makes something waver inside me for one treacherous moment.
What if—
"Well, isn't this a touching reunion?"
The new voice slides through the corridor like silk over broken glass, and every nerve ending in my body ignites.
I turn slowly.
He's leaning against the doorframe of Conference Room A with the casual grace of a predator.
Taller than Caspian by an inch, same black hair but longer, tousled like he just rolled out of someone's bed.
Same bone structure, same aristocratic features, but where Caspian is ice, this man is fire barely contained.
"You must be the famous Elara."
He pushes off the doorframe, extending his hand with a grin that promises trouble.
"I'm Rhys Voss, Caspian’s cousin."
My hand moves to meet his on autopilot, and when his fingers close around mine, electricity shoots straight up my arm.
These eyes.
Blue with flecks of green that catch the light as he smiles.
No.
These eyes watched me from behind a gold mask while his hands learned every secret my body had to offer.
Oh God, he is the one I slept with.
"You never mentioned you had a cousin."
I look at Caspian, buying time while my mind races.
My skin feels too tight.
Every place Rhys touched me at that masquerade burns like a brand, and I want to scrub myself raw.
Same bloodline. Same height, same build, same voice pitched in that low velvet register.
I want to run.
But my heels are rooted to the marble floor, and somewhere in this building, my son is sleeping in the company daycare with storm-gray eyes that could belong to either of these men.
"Well," Rhys cuts in before Caspian can respond, his thumb tracing a slow circle against my knuckles, "Caspian isn't one to brag."
I wanted so desperately for it to be my husband that I filled in every gap, explained away every small difference.
The longer hair. The slight variation in his touch. The way he called me little star like he was tasting the words for the first time.
He orchestrated everything. The invitation. The roses. The mask.
He made me believe I was reuniting with the man I married while he took everything I had left to give.
Rhys releases my hand, but his eyes hold mine for one beat too long. A silent acknowledgment passes between us.
We share a secret now.
I tear my gaze away, heart slamming against my ribs.
Why would he do this?